


the prosecution rests

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, F/M, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8568448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: After dinner, Joe has something to tell Cecile. Turns out he's the one who gets the surprise.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if the episode that airs in the States tonight wil joss this. I'm posting it just in case.

Joe finishes the last bite of his dinner, sits back and takes a sip of a very nice red wine and allows a smile to come to his face. "Compliments to the chef." He raises his glass to Cecile who raises hers back, tilting her head in a way that he thinks is meant to indicate slight embarrassment, though mostly flattered. "Although...." He lets his voice trail off, teasing and she lifts one eyebrow, daring him to continue without saying a word. "I seem to remember a trail of IOUs... is this another one?"

Cecile lets one shoulder rise and fall in a shrug. The blouse she's wearing - something wispy and floaty and off the shoulder - slips a little, exposing more of her skin to his gaze. He tries not to stare, knows he fails completely when her lips curl into a smile that's suddenly more knowing than teasing. For a second, he wonders if she did that on purpose and, when she drops her gaze, looks up at him through her lashes as her fingers play with the stem of her glass, he's sure she did. "If you want it to be," she says, her voice low, and he knows she's just lobbed the ball firmly back into his court. 

He takes a deep breath, sets down his glass and reaches across the table, takes her hand in his. It's tiny, just like her, but warm although not as warm as her smile when she looks at him. "I would like that," he tells her and she turns her hand under his, lacing their fingers together as she stands. 

"Come on," she says, inclining her head towards her living room, towards the roaring fire and the comfortable looking couch that he fancies he could sink down into and never want to leave. The image of the two of them, bodies entwined together, dances across his mind's eye, makes his heart pound and his blood sing and he knows he wants that, knows she does too. He's known that ever since he accepted her invitation to dinner, known since he arrived here and saw the candlelight and the look in her eyes that there was only one way this was going to end, because it might have been a while for him but he does have a vague memory of how these things work, thank you very much. 

And yet, he still tightens his grip on her hand as he stands, hears the words, "Cecile, wait," fall from his lips. 

She looks over to the coffee table where his cell phone lies face down, side by side with hers. It hasn't rung all night because his kids have told him that under no circumstances are they interrupting his date and, when he'd mentioned to his boss that he had plans with Cecile, David had muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Hallelujah," before ordering him to turn his phone off for the evening. When her gaze meets his again, she's smiling. "Don't tell me you forgot movie night with your kids." 

That memory makes his cheeks burn and he shakes his head. "That's tomorrow." 

He's not actually joking but she laughs anyway. He finds himself thinking, not for the first time, that he likes that sound. That he could get used to hearing it. "Then is this about something terrible like you liking pineapple on pizza?" She raises both eyebrows exaggeratedly as she closes the gap between them, leaning into him. This close she has to tilt her head right back to look up at him and it's all kinds of cute. "Because I have to tell you, that could be a deal breaker."

Joe chuckles, his free hand finding her bare shoulder, his finger tracing a path along her collarbone. She shivers as a trail of goose flesh rises in its wake. "We are in agreement on pizza." 

That's easy to say, but the knowledge of what he has to say next, the secret that he's been keeping from her, from everyone, rises up and threatens to choke him. He's wondered about telling her, but he's kept so many secrets from the people he cares about for so long that he's tired of it, doesn't want to do it any more. Whatever this is, and he's really hoping it's something, he wants all the cards on the table from the get go. 

He takes a deep breath. "But there is something you should know..." 

He pauses, searching for the right words and she frowns, eyes narrowing even as they continue to dance. "Is this where you tell me about Barry being The Flash?"

Joe knows his jaw drops to somewhere around his knees at the matter of fact way she says it. He closes his mouth or tries to, but it just drops again and his impression of a just landed fish makes her laugh and shake her head. "You knew?" 

Cecile nods, looking at him like she can't decide if he's really great or really dumb. Truth be told, he's not so sure of that himself. "I knew." 

It's Joe's turn to frown. "How?" Because while it's great that he doesn't have to tell her, even better that she doesn't appear to have a problem with it, or they never would have gotten this far, the fact remains that if she worked it out, if he let something slip, other people could know Barry's secret too, other people who weren't as friendly as she was. 

"Let's examine the evidence, shall we?" Cecile takes a step away from him, releases his hand as she picks up her wine glass and takes a sip. "Three years ago," she begins, "Harrison Wells switches on his particle accelerator, blows a hole in half the city. It was a few weeks after that that the first rumours about people with abilities started to surface. Which I don't expect you to remember, because you were spending all your free time at the hospital with your son, who had been struck by lightning after the explosion." She's moving as she speaks, walking back and forth, one hand curled around the bowl of her wineglass, the other moving through the air. He's seen her like this, more times than he can count, in the courtroom, watching her build a case, transfix a judge, bamboozle a witness so that she can get her man. 

He's always found it damn attractive. 

"Except even though everyone in Central City is trying to get as far away from STAR Labs and Harrison Wells as they can, you go running into the belly of the beast. Let them move your son there, spend all your time sitting with him, waiting for him to wake up. Which he does. Nine months later and by all accounts, he walks into the police station one day, when you'd been at his bedside the previous night, looking like nothing happened. No after effects, no physical therapy. Nine months in a coma and he's good as new." She stops pacing, looks him right in the eye. "You and I both know the human body doesn't work that way." 

He'd never actually considered that and his heart stutters in his chest for a moment. 

"Not long after that," Cecile continues, "the first reports of a mysterious red streak start to emerge. And when they begin to call him The Flash, suddenly your name appears on ninety percent of the cases he's involved in. Like you're the only detective in Central City."

Joe shakes his head although he knows it's pointless. "It's not that high," he says and the look she gives him stops him in his tracks. He's seen that one at the courthouse too, when she's not impressed with an answer she's been given. 

"I'll go down to eighty-five, no lower." She raises her glass to her lips, as if waiting for him to contradict her. 

He knows better. 

"Then you're put in charge of the meta human task force. And who do you bring in as your consultant? Someone who used to work at STAR Labs. And this is after you come to me with some hypothetical question about some sort of meta human Guantanamo Bay, some place where meta humans are being kept without due process... which I'm not going to debate with you, but where in the city would there be a facility big enough, with the right equipment, the right knowledge, to hold all the people that The Flash - and you - have rounded up?" 

She lays down her glass, tilts her head and spreads her hands. "The prosecution rests." 

Joe can only chuckle, rubs his hand over his lips, down his beard. "Man," he says, "I'm glad you're on my side."

"I am." The look he sees in her eyes, dark and intense, makes any desire to chuckle flee rapidly, a different kind of desire altogether taking its place. "On your side, I mean." She walks to him, lays her hands on his chest, fingers playing with the buttons of his shirt. 

"There's more." His hands land on her hips, slide slowly around to rest on the small of her back. "About STAR Labs, about the people there..." 

One of her hands slides up, curls over his shoulder. "You don't have to tell me everything." Her voice is a bare whisper. "You don't have to tell me anything, not if you don't want to. But I'm here, Joe... and I hate to break it to you, but I don't scare that easy." 

A smile tugs at Joe's lips. "I know that," he tells her. "And I'm glad." 

Her smile is bright, brilliant in the dim light. "So..." Her voice trails off and her fingers flick at a button of his shirt, opening it. "What do we do now?"

"I could tell you," Joe answers, the words suddenly coming easily, "but I'd rather show you." 

If the way she responds to his kiss is any indication, he doesn't think she's going to have a problem with that. 

And when he presses her back against the couch cushions, when's it's even better than his vague imaginings, he knows she won't.


End file.
